Turnouts, Part 2

So far I have built two turnouts, one left and one right, with the Fast Tracks jig. The toughest part is gapping the point rails after everything is soldered together. So far the X-acto razor saw is doing the job just fine.

I ordered a stock rail filing tool to assist in the turnout building, it should be here soon. This is the first time I have built turnouts, and the jigs certainly help the process. I don't know if I would have wanted to tackle the project without them.

Turnouts

The package containing the Fast Tracks turnout kit is waiting for me at the post office. I'll be picking it up today and perhaps I'll be building some turnouts this weekend.

The shed has also arrived and is being filled with things that previously had no real place to be stored. The train room will be getting cleaned out this weekend as well.

There are eleven months remaining until I must have the Saltillo modules finished.

Three Little Locos

The L1 lacks only paint and finish. It doesn't like the tight corners, but should run OK on a 15" minimum radius. I modified the drawbar connection by removing it from the locomotive and attaching it to the tender, it now hooks downward into the trailing truck to prevent contact between the loco's metal frame and the brass hook. I also hard-wired the tender to the LED light board in the locomotive, so it picks up on both sides from both locomotive and tender. The tender now needs a little weight to improve the contact, but this locomotive is as stall-free as the Bachmann Spectrum F-7's are.

The Atlas Mikado and Pacific have both received new gearmotors. They run well, but because they only pick up on one side of the locomotive chassis they can be a bit balky over turnouts. There doesn't seem to be any way to fix this, the original design had the tender picking up on one side and the loco on the other. The Bachmann tenders allow pickup on both sides, but since the Atlas frames still only pick up on one side of the locomotive a stall can occur if both tender trucks hit the same dead spot. Fortunately that doesn't happen often, and when it does a bit of track cleaning has so far taken care of it.

The Atlas locomotives run well with each other, but due to gearing differences they are both slower than the Kato mechanism under the L1. I haven't tried double-heading the Pacifics, but I will be surprised if the Model Power runs at the same speed as the remotored Atlas. The remotored Mikado isn't a very good puller when compared to the Kato, but that is no doubt due to the heavy pewter shell of the L1.

The Class J, by the way, has had it's drawbar shortened as well. Turns out that Bachmann supplied two holes to attach locomotive to tender, and it was at the furthest hole. The fix was to simply attach the locomotive to the closer of the two connecting holes.

So at this point the Atlas locomotives are complete and ready for service, and the L1 shell and tender will be painted as soon as I have time off from work to do them, along with the white metal bits on tender and loco mechanism. The Class J was ready to go from the time it came out of the box, but has now had it's minor quibble repaired. All of these locomotives have received Micro-Trains couplers on their tenders and all but the Class J has a Z scale Micro-Trains coupler in it's pilot. The fleet grows (but will soon contract by two train-set Northerns and two train-set Consolidations), so it's about time to give them a place to run.

I have ordered a new shed to be built and brought to the house, this will give me the much-needed storage space to de-clutter my "train room" and so give me the room I need to start building the new layout. First things first, the carpeting will come out and be replaced with a hard-surfaced floor of some sort. I have stick-on simulated wood strips that I will use if I have enough of them, and if not I'll see if I can find some more. If not once again, I'll look into some engineered wood floors.

I have also obligated myself to building a pair of Nn3 modules based on the East Broad Top Railroad's operations in Saltillo PA for the National Narrow Gauge Convention to be held next September in Hickory NC. To that end I have ordered the Fast Tracks Nn3 turnout kit for a #6 turnout, so I'll get to try my hand at building turnouts. If all goes well I'll get one for the standard gauge as well, and maybe I'll get crazy enough to get the ones for dual gauge. On top of that, I am trying to finish the dollhouse for the granddaughter before Christmas.

All in all I will be very busy for the next year.

Update on Motive Power

Almost all of the pieces have arrived.

The kit for the L1 Pennsy 2-8-2 is going well. At first I thought I would not be able to use the tender casting, but when I took a good look at the Bachmann tender I found that it's shell pulls straight off the top and has what looks suspiciously like a decoder in it. At any rate, with a bit of judicious trimming of both tender floor and the casting, including removing the coal bunker floor and replacing it with a piece of styrene cut to fit just a bit higher, the Pennsy casting will work fine on the Bachmann floor.

I had to modify all three of the tender drawbars by gluing in a piece of styrene and drilling a hole to connect to the locomotives. On the Atlas locos I drilled a hole in each of the trailing trucks and bent a thick piece of brass rod as a connector. On the Kato I bent a piece of the same brass rod to fit in the existing trailing truck hole. All three tenders will now connect to their respective locomotives, but I might have to rethink the Kato as it is a bit too close for operations on tighter curves. I'm planning on running a minimum of 15" on the standard gauge, but I'm not sure if the Kato will make a curve that tight with the current coupling distance.

I also modified the slope-back tender for the 0-6-0 by clipping the part of the old tender's drawbar that connected to the locomotive and trimming it to fit inside the new tender's drawbar opening. Now I have a good tight fit and a better contact system than before so this locomotive, already a good performer, is now a great performer. It is very difficult to stall this locomotive now since it picks up from both tender trucks as well as from four of the six locomotive wheels. It still won't pull a full length freight train, but the prototype never did either. It does just fine with a cut of four to six cars, I haven't tried it on anything more than that but this will likely be it's standard train length anyway.

The worms have been removed from the Atlas locos along with their enclosures, they will be sent to the Motorman to be installed on the gearmotors that are being built for them. At present the only one of the three locos that run is the Kato, and it is a real jewel. I have to finish detailing the L1 shell and it will be ready for paint and decals. It is a running locomotive that needs cosmetic work, the Atlas locos are good cosmetically but don't run. All that will change when the new motors get here, but there is no rush since I don't have an operational pike for the moment.

There has been one final addition to the roster, and this one is completely non-prototypical. It is a Bachmann Class J Norfolk and Western 4-8-4 with auxiliary water tender. I have to install couplers to close the gap between the tender and aux tender, and I would also like to close the gap a bit between the loco and tender, but it is as beautiful as it's prototype counterpart. It is road number 611, which is also the only surviving prototype of it's class. In my opinion, the N&W J class locomotives were the most beautiful steam locomotives ever produced.

So what is a N&W J class doing on a PRR themed pike? The story I'm making up is that it's leased with an option as the "PRR" contemplates a switch to diesel. In the real world, it's my railroad and I'll run what I like.

Nowadays of course the N&W and the PRR are combined into the Norfolk Southern on the part of the Pennsy system that I'm modeling.

Upgrading Motive Power

I have just sent away for the final bits and pieces for three more locomotives.

I have been a dedicated train set Bachmann locomotive purchaser since I started in N scale, and I can certainly say I have gotten what I paid for. The Bachmann train set locos have gotten better in recent years, but they are what they are.

I have older train set versions of their F-9, 4-8-4, and 2-8-0 locomotives. The F-9's aren't so bad, but they aren't so good either. The steam, on the other hand, is mostly horrendous.

I have puttered around with them a bit, adding tender pickups and even re-motoring the Northerns. The results have been mixed at best, they are better than what they were but it is still trying to make silk purses out of sows ears. So, I have been slowly working on an upgrade program for the steam motive power that will pull the Pennsylvania and standard gauge Path Valley trains.

I purchased a Kato Mikado mechanism without shell when they were on sale, and purchased one Atlas Rivarrosi Mikado and one Atlas Rivarrosi Pacific mechanisms off of an Email list, with shells but without motors, later on.

I have just purchased the Pennsy L1 pewter kit for the Kato, one gearmotor each for the Atlas Mikado and Pacific, and three Bachmann medium length Spectrum tenders, one for each locomotive. When all of the pieces get here I will assemble each of the locomotives and will then have a pair of Mikados and a pair of Pacifics.

At that time I will "retire" my train set Consolidations and Northerns. I will retain the Spectrum Consolidation and the Spectrum F-7's, and the non-Spectrum F-9's will become the exclusive property of my 11 year old. I'll also keep the 0-6-0 switcher but it is getting a Spectrum tender as well.

That will give the "PRR" one authentic Mikado, one non-authentic Mikado, and two non-authentic Pacifics. The Mikes will pull the freights and the Pacifics will handle passenger duties.

The standard gauge portion of the Path Valley will have a Consolidation (also non-authentic) and an 0-6-0 switcher (need you ask?) for the processing plant. The narrow gauge will have to soldier on with the collection of two Mikados, one Mogul and one American that it already has.

I suppose I'd better get to work on the new pike so all of them will have a place to live.

Progress, At A Price

The dollhouse has been moved out of the "train room" soon to be followed by it's table and sundry articles. After that the train table will be disassembled and an around-the-room setup started.

This comes at a price. My dear wife departed this mortal plane a month ago, on the third of June. The dollhouse will be finished and given to the granddaughter, according to her wishes.

My only regret is that I didn't get it done for her.

Idling

I really wish I had an update, but the "train room" has gotten rather clogged as of late with the wife's dollhouse. The dollhouse had to be moved for Daughter's wedding. The wife has since decided that she doesn't want the dollhouse back where it was because the room it was in looks so much bigger without it there.

The only hope I have is to finish the dollhouse so that it can be moved out into a display location. Maybe then I'll be able to re-claim my "train room" again.

ICC Valuation Maps

The Interstate Commerce Commission evaluated the Susquehanna River and Western Railroad around 1917 or so during its valuation of all railroad properties in the United States.

I searched the database online at archives.gov and found the following information:

Record group number: 134
Series designator: Railroad Valuation Maps, ARC ID 562366
Individual File Notation: Valuation maps for the Susquehanna River and Western Railroad, ARC ID 1566749/Local ID Susquehanna River & Western RR

I made an inquiry to the archives and got the following back:

RG 134: ICC R.R. Val. Maps; Susquehanna River & Western
Bundle 1109, VS: 1 Maps: 1-14 (14 maps)
Size: each 24" by 56" Date: ca. 1917 Scale: 1":100'

The archivist informed me that the maps were the blueprint copies showing "tracks, structures and lands belonging to the railroad" including "annotations showing new acquisition to the railroad or track/property no longer in use."

By 1917 the SR&W owned both the former Perry County Railroad and the N&SVRR, and the track from New Bloomfield to Newport was extant but no longer in use.

The next step is to contact one of the contractors and see how much it will be to have the maps reproduced for me.

UPDATE: Over $500 for all 14 maps.

Research

Someone else is doing some research on the Newport and Sherman's Valley Railroad. I'll be checking in on him from time to time to see what he finds.

I haven't heard anything from Mr Tressler. A visit to some of the Perry County libraries would be very helpful I think.

Here's To You

Arrival

The Kato mechanism arrived yesterday and all I can say about it is "wow." It is everything that I have been led to believe and more.

I have been contemplating building a pulse throttle of this type, and with this mechanism all the flaws of the old throttle are apparent. The throttle that I have is an old rheostat model that jumps from 0v to about 2v without any transitions, and the mechanism jumps into life as soon as it sees that voltage.

My old train set locomotives behave just fine on this throttle, but the Kato is such a beauty that it deserves something better. There isn't any way I can make it creep, even with the throttle turned to pulse power. My remotored Northerns act the same way, but I was willing to live with it for the train-set Northerns. Now I've decided that I need a throttle that will allow the locomotives to perform at their best.

Other than that the mechanism is smooth, even over my less than perfect trackwork, and it is dead quiet. The low profile wheels means it won't have any problems on code 55 track, and with the pewter shell it should be a strong puller.

Now I need to get this kit and put everything together. It looks like the Pennsy will soon have a Mikado to use at the SR&W interchange.

New Motive Power?

Kato is having an end of year sale, and one of the items is the mechanism for their legendary Mikado. At the price they are offering it's darn near impossible to pass up, and in fact I have already ordered one.

My plans are to build the GHQ kit for the Pennsy L1, offered through Republic Locomotive Works. Of course the management questions my need for another piece of motive power, especially considering that this one is a kit and not a finished locomotive.

I am going to have to find a suitable tender for it, but unfortunately the tender trucks are out of stock at Kato. I'm thinking one of the Bachmann tenders might do the trick. I don't really need a Mikado for the Susquenanna River and Western branch of the PVRR, but I couldn't pass it up.

In Memoriam

Pliny G. Holt, Naval Aviator and model railroader, passed away on January 4, 2010 at the age of 99. Captain Holt was, at the time of his passing, the oldest living Naval Aviator. He modeled the Southern Pacific Railroad in N scale and was also a noted model ship builder.

He attended Naval Aviation flight training with Captains "Bull" Halsey and John S. McCain (grandfather of Arizona Senator John S. McCain III), although he was but a cadet. He was NMRA MMR #178 and also held masters certificates in model ship building.

Fair winds and following seas Captain.

Science!

Next time someone picks at you for playing with trains, show them this link!










Photo by Elle Starkman